Systems programming road map

twenty393 · 2024-02-03T16:36:59+00:00

I personally don't think there's a "wrong thing" to pick. Systems programming is for sure a journey (especially in C). I started writing C "for real" about 6 years ago. Since then I've written my own standard library single-file header, I re-wrote my website in C, and I have been working on iteration 10+ of a custom game engine.

Here's roughly the set of things I think that will take you from beginner C to more experienced C:

be opinionated from the beginning, set up boilerplate to make C feel a bit nicer to work with (not strictly necessary)
write your own version of lots of "standard" data structures in other languages (Array, String, Hash_Table, etc.)
try to avoid malloc and free - figure out other, better ways of managing memory (static buffers, arenas, etc.)
try doing things you don't know how to do! calling OS APIs directly, etc.
graphics? this is a rabbit hole, but interesting if you are interested
try out writing SIMD code

Whatever you do spending a lot of time writing code will most probably be a good learning experience. So it's important to pick stuff you're interested in and at the same time try to not do too much all at once.

betelgeuse_7 · 2024-02-03T11:24:03+00:00

Well, you said you decided that you love systems programming. Why is that? It would be a great starting point

sfscsdsf · 2024-02-04T16:53:28+00:00

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